general news

August 14, 2012

Well the bad news in that I haven’t managed to get all the pre-orders and Kickstarter Backer rewards copies of Bumps in the Night packed. So I’ve had to make a couple of tough decisions that I know are going to disappoint some people.

So the bad news is, I can’t mail out the books until after I get back from GenCon. With the time it will take to pack the remainder of them, I’d expect them to go out by Friday August 24th. I apologize for this delay, but there were just too many things to handle in the run up to GenCon for me to get everything done. Bumps in the Night will be on sale at GenCon, but distributors orders will not be sent out until after all backer copies are shipped.

The first bit good news is that I’m sending out the Kickstarter PDF rewards today. Everyone who was a Backer should be getting a collection of Player Aid PDFs, a PDF of the Playtest notes, and a PDF of the pre-generated characters I used to run “The Vengeful Dead.” I hope this sharpens your appetites. I’ve sent them out via a service called Abobe SendNow. You should be getting an email from Abobe SendNow any time now.

The second bit of good news only applies to folks who are going to attend GenCon. Many Backers and folks who pre-ordered have asked if I could bring their copies of Bumps with me to GenCon, and while I resisted this idea at first, I’ve changed my mind. I will be bringing a couple dozen signed copies of Bumps in the Night with me to GenCon in my luggage. If you come by the booth you can pick your copies (signed or unsigned). I won’t have copies of the pre-press The Unspeakable Oath #1 there. So higher level backers will have to wait until I get back from GenCon.

Now I’ve got to scramble these last 6 hours to get my own personal gear ready to fly to GenCon in Indianapolis.

And yes, we will be plugging along to get more and more Pagan Publishing Products up at Drive Thru RPG. We hope to have Delta Green: Eyes Only ready next month and Delta Green: Targets of Opportunity ready the month after that. But first I have to survive August, which as we all know is convention season. Lebowski Fest is coming to Seattle and I have some serious Waltering to do (play the video from CNN... you can't unsee it). Then comes Gen Con Indy and finally PAX 2012 rounds out the month. So look for Delta Green: Eyes Only in September and Delta Green: Targets of Opportunity in October.

July 17, 2012

Just got the good news from our printer: Bumps in the Night is officially hot off the presses.

If I do everything right the 60 cases of books will be on it's way to Pagan by this coming Thursday. I expect 5 to 10 days in shipping and then starts the difficult process of hand stuffing hundreds of envelops with copies of the book for all those who pre-ordered via GenCon, Arkham Bazaar and Kickstarter.

Thank you all for helping to make Bumps in the Night a reality. I can only hope that you enjoy the scenarios as much as I did when I played them.

June 22, 2012

This is just a quick note to let you folks know that I sent the layout files for "Bumps in the Night" off to our printer this week. They got them today and will start work on generating a proof copy immediately. I expect to get the proof back before the end of next week. After that it'll be another 15 days to generate the full run of "Bumps in the Night," and probably another 10 days to ship it from Michigan to Seattle.

The good news here is that if everything stays on schedule (with something like two weeks of wiggle room built in) then everyone can get their signed copies of "Bumps in the Night" before GenCon. I don't want to have a situation where people who supported this project are showing up at the Pagan Publishing booth at GenCon looking for their signed book only to be told it's either in the mail or I'll be mailing them out when I get back to Seattle. Looks like we've dodged that bullet.

I've also been seriously distracted by another Pagan Publishing project these last weeks, but now it's almost done. I've worked a deal with DriveThruRPG and OneBookShelf to offer four of our Delta Green books as downloadable PDFs and Print on Demand books. The biggest hurtle was getting contracts or fee waivers signed by all the authors, but after a couple weeks of chasing them down and wrangling the legal details, everyone has a contract and everyone is on-board. Any day now we will be making an announcement that four out-of-print Delta Green books will be available again. Just to be specific those four books (all of which will be available as both PDF and Print on Demand) are:

April 02, 2012

As I write this our Kickstarter fundraiser for Bumps in the Night has just cracked the $10,000.00 mark. I continue to be astounded by the generosity of Pagan Publishing's fans and amazed at the goodwill that still remains for this company and products we make.

While I am still conflicted about whether to push this Kickstarter on to fund our next book (Delta Green: Targets of Opportunity) or run a separate Kickstarter for that project, I will nevertheless continue to add more rewards to Bumps in the Night for everyone who has contributed so far. Now that we have crossed the $10K mark I will add playtest notes for four of the five scenarios in Bumps in the Night. I did not playtest "The Westerfield Incident," but I did playtest all the others. And yes I will be speaking with the other playtesters and seeing if they might be will to add something of their own to the reports.

I'm chasing down options for the other backer rewards you folks have suggested and will be adding them as soon as something can be worked out with the rights holders.

March 21, 2012

To say that I was surprised to see that you, Pagan's fans, met our fund-raising goal of $2,500.00 in less than 12 hours would be a bit of an understatement. By the end of our first day I was running out of words to describe how shocked I was by the generosity of our fans and by the good-will Pagan Publishing still has. Three days in and I am speechless.

Of course, since exceeding our fund-raising goals was not a subject I put any thought into, I have been playing a bit of catch up on this subject. Every time I think "I'll add a reward for everyone when we hit the $4K mark," suddenly we've passed the $4K mark. Okay, I'll add the new reward when we hit $5K...

ZOOM!

$5K is in my tail-lights.

$6K?

SPLAT!

We've got the $6K goal splashed all over our grill. Clearly I'm going to have to add the rewards and not worry about the pledge levels because you folks are exceeding my expectations faster than I can conceive them.

So let's begin by offering a couple of new rewards to EVERYONE who has pledged.

Everyone who pledged to this project will now receive two pdfs. The first pdf will be a collection of all the player handouts, floor-plans and maps for the scenarios in Bumps in the Night. That will save you from having to stretching the spine of the book photocopying those pages for your players.

The second pdf will be a set of pre-generated characters that I created for running the scenario "The Vengeful Dead" at game conventions. Your players may enjoy using them or maybe you can use them to fill out the guests at the resort if your players prefer to roll up their own characters.

However, that does not cover any so-called Stretch Goals, that is new aspects or enhancements for a project that can be added as new pledge levels are achieved. I won't add anything to Bumps in the Night that might delay the book going to press. I also don't want to collect funds for a project that cannot be immediately sent to press (or at least isn't extremely close to completion). Therefore the only Pagan project that could qualify as being ready to go sans an infusion of cash is the softcover edition of Delta Green: Targets of Opportunity. However, it requires a great deal of cash. To print and ship it would be (as per my last print bid) another $8,740.00 And that doesn't include paying the artists, the writers and the licensing fees.

So, I am hesitant to make the funding of Delta Green: Targets of Opportunity a stretch goal for this fundraiser. My inclination is to take any money over and above our goals for Bumps in the Night and put into a nice warm savings account, so that when we do a fundraiser for Delta Green: Targets of Opportunity, soon after this Kickstarter ends, then we'll just have that much less money to raise. I feel this would be less confused and allow for a package of backers' rewards that are tailored for a Delta Green product.

Nevertheless, none of this would be possible without you, Pagans fans and backers. So I am certainly willing to entertain any suggestions you have. Would you prefer a separate Kickstarter or would you prefer to try and pile on the momentum of this one and build it to a two-for-one fundraiser? I'm also interested in any suggestions you folks might have for additional rewards you might be interested in. Certainly there are playtest notes that could be shared. There are other Pagan Publishing books that could be mailed out with your copy of Bumps in the Night. None of these possibilities would be here if it wasn't for your generosity so I am open to any suggestions you might care to offer.

March 18, 2012

Pagan Publishing has just launched a fundraiser at Kickstarter.com to raise the rest of our printing and shipping budget for our new collection of Call of Cthulhu scenarios entitled Bumps in the Night.

Bumps in the Night was written by John H. Crowe III and is set in the classic Call of Cthulhu era in the early part of the 20th Century. All five scenarios use the Call of Cthulhu Basic Role Playing mechanics, but none of them are based on the Cthulhu Mythos. Instead the players will have to face obscure horrors from the world of myth and folklore. At 120 pages, Bumps in the Night is beautifully illustrated by Rick Sardinha, Heather Hudson, Samuel Araya and Rhonda Libby. It will be produced as a 8.5" x 11" softcover, with glossy color exteriors and grisly grayscale interior artwork.

All writing, editing, proof-reading, illustration and layout are complete. All we need now is our print budget. We've raised some money through customer pre-sales but still need to raise another $2,500 dollars to cover the rest of the printing and shipping to our warehouse. If we meet our pledge goals, we can have a full print run ready to ship to customers in nine weeks (which includes the time we have to wait for Amazon Payments to release the pledged funds).

For those folks who pre-ordered Bumps in the Night at GenCon or from Arkham Bazaar, if you also want to contribute to the Kickstarter fundraiser, we'll add the money you've already spent to your new pledge for purposes of calculating rewards. There's no reason you should get less just because you supported this project earlier than anyone else.

March 16, 2012

Just a short note to let folks know that Pagan Publishing will be running games at a could of local Cons.

In just two weeks we’ll be running some games down in Vancouver WA (just across the Columbia River from Portland, OR) at GameStorm 14, March 22 -25. We’re set to run three games of Call of Cthulhu.

On Friday March 23rd I’ll be running The Last Flight of the L58 at 11:30am. It's 1918. The players are the crew of the Imperial German Naval airship L58. While on a secret mission over Persia, unnatural, impossible death stalks the crew. They will have to fight for their lives if they ever hope to return home to the Fatherland.

On Saturday March 24th I’ll be running “The Vengeful Dead” at 9:00am. This scenario will be a sneak peek at our upcoming Bumps in the Night scenario anthology. In “The Vengeful Dead” it's 1921. Players are the guests of the rustic Grandview Lodge Resort in the foothills of the Appalachians. Undoubtedly they will find the peace and quiet they so desire. Nothing disturbing will happen. Not at all.

Finally on Sunday March 25th at 11:30am I will run a Delta Green game I like to call "Gone South.” Here a 70-year old photo of something that should not exist leads our Delta Green agents to a quiet corner of Mexico where the drug war is a distant story. Does the tranquility mean that the danger has passed, or has it grown to horrific proportions?

The second con is The Emerald City Comicon here in Seattle. We’re going to support our favorite Seattle comic and game store, The Dreaming. Over the course of the weekend we’ll be running some Call of Cthulhu, some Hills Rise Wild and maybe even a couple of games we don’t even have stake in, like Fantasy Flight’s Arkham Horror or Flying Frog’s Fortune & Glory… ‘cuz well, they’re just fun. Hope to see some local Pagan fans while we’re there.

Oh, and stay tuned... we're about 24 hours away from launching a Kickstarter fundraiser to get "Bumps in the Night" to press.

September 30, 2011

I can't imagine that I have to remind any of you agents and cultists out there that the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival continues to thrill and astound views both in its Northern and Southern incarnations. This weekend I shall be attending the Portland H.P. Lovecraft film festival at the magnificent Hollywood Theatre.There I will be taking in all the new short films as well as a German feature film based on "The Colour Out of Space" and the latest creation of those madmen from the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society: a feature length version of "The Whisperer in Darkness" done in the style of a 1930s Universal monster movie!

Next weekend, however, there is a second film festival of similar bent up in my home town of Seattle. Lovecraft's Visions is a new film festival that will debuting at the Seattle Art Museum the weekend of October 7th, 8th and 9th. This will give folks in the Pacific Northwest a chance to see The Whisperer in Darkness again as well as a far rarer gem: the never before seen director's cut of The Resurrected! Dan O'Bannon did a pretty good job bringing "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" to the screen, but it wasn't the movie he wanted to make. For the first time an audience will get to see Dan O'Bannon's vision without the clutter and cuts forced on him by producers and the studio.

Come on out and see it folks. Who knows when it will ever see the light of day again?

September 15, 2011

Shane Ivey and the folks at Arc Dream have done a great job bringing The Unspeakable Oath back from the dead. Now they've upped the ante with the creation of a Call of Cthulhu podcast called Unspeakable! For their first three episodes they included interviews with John Tynes, Dennis Detwiller and myself (Adam Scott Glancy). Check them out. The interviews are chocked full of product info, war stories, nonsense and segueways.